Has there ever been such a spectacular squandering of greatness as the Killers achieved with their woefully awful Hot Fuss follow up, Sam’s Town? With its overblown Springsteen imitations (only without the pathos), and homages to John Cougar Mellancamp (only completely without irony)? Probably not. However, this matters not an inch to the sold out crowd at the Entertainment Centre, for whom it may be said the phrase “going apeshit” had been specifically coined. Though, I expect that if you weren’t born at the time of what was being referenced on stage, you’d probably think that the Killers circa Sam’s Town were the second coming of Jebus too. But they aren’t. They really, really aren’t.

After an opening video barrage so overblown not even U2 would have come up with it (though the grainy black and white montages of the Joshua Tree National Park were interspersed with – a goat), there the Killers are, fronted by Brandon Flowers in his baby Bono silver lame suit jacket, prancing around and making Daniel Johns look like a picture of restraint. And no matter how many times they see it, people are always impressed by a falling curtain of shimmering gold confetti. By the singer wide legged, mounting the speaker stacks and emptily gesticulating via fist pumps. The guitarist with his fuzzy head of curls, leather vest and flying V – was this taking the piss? Sadly, no.

The Entertainment Centre is a notorious aircraft hanger with huge dead pockets where the sound turns to sludge. But several have been there – notably The Cure and Radiohead – and managed to circumvent the god-awful acoustics and the huge, impersonal space, turning it into a somehow intimate carnival of light and sound. The Killers seemed to have blown all their cash on that light-up Sam’s Town sign, with not much left over but to buy a huge, black velvet curtain to serve as a backdrop. Yawn.

Do not let it go unsaid, that Hot Fuss may be one of the most incendiary and almost perfect debut albums of the decade. Seemingly coming from nowhere, it was a searing, embittered rallying call to the done over and heartsick, with Mr Brightside serving as a peerless, shimmering slice of hugely danceable invective. But Sam’s Town is laden and clumsy, and with the exception of ‘Bones’ is almost completely bereft of the electro pop sensibilities, and fat-free, punchy songwriting which made their debut so staggeringly impressive.

Whenever the band tore into Hot Fuss tracks like Somebody Told Me, Jenny Was a Friend of Mine or Smile Like You Mean it it only served to demonstrate how far the Killers have strayed from a winning formula on Sam’s Town. And while innovation and ambition should always be applauded, the execution here is terrible. ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ was rousing in all the ways it should have been, but probably the strongest track of the night was ‘Shadow Play’, though if half the audience were even aware that it was a Joy Division cover, is debatable.

While the band were at times reduced to a mire of drowning frequencies with the snare buried beyond recognition, Brandon Flowers’ all too often histrionic warbling was crystal clear at every painful moment – especially so in a maudlin acoustic track and in several short, piano led interludes which seemed to go nowhere. His constant strutting to and fro, and complete inability to ever be still and just deliver a tune with some kind of genuine feeling, meant it was all surface and no substance with the Killers this time around. “Smile Like You Mean It” was irony for real for the only time in the evening.

But the kids ate up like ice cream. Which if you like vanilla, you probably did too.